thanks for watching. see you back. that was the sound of ripping paper. hope nobody's listening to this on the radio. i'll see you at 3:00. >> i'll be back tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. eastern. right now, our dear friend katy tur who's wearing a very win sweater. >> trying to protect myself from the smell in here. >> of the ripping paper. >> of the ripping paper. >> oh my. >> armor myself in a sweater. >> stop that. you're 2 years old. >> adios. >> thank you very much. i'm katy tur. it is 11:00 a.m. out west and 2:00 p.m. in washington where we are now just 24 hours out from a house vote on impeachment of the president of the united states.

and everybody on capitol hill at least is retreating into their partisan corn ners. today is day 85. today the rules committee, a panel that usually meets to little fanfare in a small room of the capitol was the focus of the attention. they met to set the rules for tomorrow's historic vote and republicans united in their opposition used to forum to vent. >> sadly, the democrats impeachment inquiry has been flawed and partisan from day one so i guess it should come as no surprise that democrats preordained outcome is flawed. >> we're in a kangaroo court. it's backwards. we're more alice in wonderland than we are the house of representatives. >> there are a couple of signs of dissension.

nearly all of the centrist democrats announced they will vote yes on impeachment. many frame their decision as one that puts their institutional duty over partisan politics and with impeachment poised to move to the senate, leaders are waging a public war about a trial and what it should look like. both mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer took to the floor over whether white house insiders should be forced to testify. >> it's not the senate's job to search desperately for ways to get to guilty. that would hardly be impartial justice. >> the coming weeks, every senator will have a choice. do they want a fair, trial that examines all the facts or do they want a trial that doesn't let all the facts come out? >> remember, we are just 24 hours from what will be a major day on capitol hill. joining me is jeff bennett.

so jeff, a day out. tomorrow we're going to see impeachment debated on the floor. today we saw a preview of that. so what can we expect? >> you're right. i think the debate we saw in the obscure house rules committee which has gotten more attention these couple of months than in the past couple of years, but it's an opening act. the preview of o the floor debate we expect to see tomorrow. you saw democrats offering a recitation that it's a proper remedy, republicans reliving the entire process that's brought the country to this point just 24 hours before this historic debate. you hear doug collins saying republicans are acting like last minute christmas shoppers running through the aisles to rip all the evidence off the shelves ahead of this self-imposed christmas deadline. but at some point, we expect this committee to do the work they're expected to do. establish parameters for this floor debate tomorrow. i'm told they'll consider things

like hupg the debate should go. which committee should be able to send members to the floor to do that debate. whether or not amendments can be offered up. nine democrat, four republicans. i suspect that whatever strategy they settle upon hf the full blessing of house democrats and to your other point that you make, all day, our team has been tracking this announcement from these front line democrats who represent districts that president trump won in 2016 that they were able to flip in 2018. almost all to a number of them now supporting impeachment. so certainly we expect that nancy pelosi has the votes she needs to prevail. she can afford to lose 17 democrats and still move forward with impeachment, but there's nothing to suggest that a number that large will be in the no column. >> thank you. joining me now is jake sherman and deborah pearlstein. so jake, what i heard in this rules committee mark up and

again, it's going to start in a few minutes again and we'll dip in and out of it as the news warrant, but what i kept hearing over and over again it seemed, the republicans were arguing that they wanted to make this a fair process. they tried to make this a fair process and they harken ed back to other investigations and the democrats didn't want to do what they were supposed to do. which is go to the courts to litigate whether or not the white house needs to cooperate. the obama administration had stone walled and the clinton administration stone walled and that's what they had to do. but give us some reality. did the obama administration and clinton administration just say blanket we won't cooperate whatsoever? did they say you can't have anything? we have absolute immunity? >> no, i mean, let's take a step back here. first of all, the answer to that is no. the obama administration because i was here and reporting on it and the clinton administration, which i was not here, but i'm familiar with, no, they didn't

give over everything congress wanted, but they were more cooperative than the trump administration. their first position was no. it wasn't let's figure out what documents we can give over. give some witnesses on a certain timetable, it was just no. once you're at no, there's nowhere else to go, no negotiation. so if republicans wanted to control this process, they should have won the house majority. they did not. democrats won the house majority and so they get to set the rules and that's you could view as unfair if you'd like, but that's reality. congress is a political institution that depends upon elections. so now we're in the democratic majority. donald trump was afforded the b possibility to send lawyers to capitol hill. i don't understand why this is not get iting across and not penetrating. the president could have sent a lawyer to talk to these committees. he chose not to after complaining he wasn't getting the opportunity to defend

himself. it's not tethered to any reality that we are part of. now listen, you could compare this to clinton. there's differences. republicans have some points, yes, there is an argument to be made. republicans say. that they should have stuck with the court process a little bit lopger. the democrats houf to see what they can get out. adam schiff and other senior democrats have made the point this is an urgent issue, it needs to be acted on with urgency. so again, the reality is that donald trump was afford ed the possibility to defend himself. he consciously chose not to do for that reasons you'd have to ask him, but not reasons that i fully understand. >> what do you think about why they decided not to cooperate? was it a lesson learned from the mueller investigation? a feeling of invincibility? that mulvaney might say what he said, that yeah, the it was a quid pro quo. >> i think there's a combination of reasons. this is unprecedented cooperation, noncooperation. remember the clinton administration, clinton actually

provided a blood sample to the special counsel investigation. so the degree of nonco noncooperation -- >> he also testified. >> he also testified. >> video testimony. >> absolutely. so this is really quite different. what's going on here, right? one is possible y a feeling of invincibility and to some extent understa understandably, his base is sort of immovable, but the other thipg this white house has going for it or going on is an extraordinary view of the scope of executive power. the president himself has said that article two of the constitution gives the president the power to do whatever he wants to do. that's not what the constitution says and his attorney general hz taken broad views. >> there's this article coming out that they're jurors. jurors don't call witnesses. the house should have called all the witnesses they wanted. is there validity to that? >> so as a constitutional matter, the senate gets to set

whatever rules it wants to set. >> and the republicans have the majority. >> that's right. now there are some factors in the democrats favor that give them some leverage. they haven't yet sent the articles of impeachment. first they need to pass them then they would transmit to the senate. there's some question about how long to wait. if the president is serious he wants the opportunity to defend himself in the senate, then he want that is to happen quickly. the house could say we're waiting to make sure that the trial process is going to be fair. and given how silent the constitution is on what process is requireded, there's a lot of flexibility for negotiations. the rules only require 51 votes. it's a small majority in the senate. republicans, there are a few moderates who might want to hear more evidence and there's a will the of flexibility. the senate could hear testimony. the house could in closed depositions or otherwise and as

we've seen with giuliani's statements, more information. >> i'm so confuse d as to why democrats are not wanting to call giuliani because he's talking to reporters, telling them exactly what happened. he wanted yovanovitch out of the way because she was in the way of the gagss that the president wanted. so it seems like he would be someone you'd want to hear from. back to the senate trial and mitch mcconnell, jake, there was some talk b about how much mcconnell might be constrained because he needs a simple majority in order to set the rules and the process of what a senate trial would look like and that he would need to be more fair minded and make it look like a serious procedure and not something they're whitewashing ore and he would be constrained by susan collins, by mitt rom y romney, but the two were out today kind of signalling they're not going to break with the gop. am i reading that correctly, jake? >> seems to be and it seems to be this rules discussion will be shirts and skins so to speak.

republicans will side with republicans. democrats will side hawith democrats. i want to respectly push back on this idea which is gaining traction that nancy pelosi should not send the impeachment articles to the senate until they come to some sort of accommodation. this is not a strategy that's going to work. at all. because mitch mcconnell in that scenario, he'd have zero incentive to cut a deal. he wouldn't have to hold a trial. the trial is only triggered when the impeachment articles are sent from the house to the senate. so as long as they're in the house, michel mcconnell doesn't have to do anything. he'll just sit there and not negotiate an agreement with shumchumer. he has no incentive to do otherwise so you want if you want especially sure there's no trial, then the strategy to pursue. if you want to ensure a trial, theb you need to send them and i know the rebuttal to that is going to be well, public sentiment is going to be so strong they'll have to send them

and come to some sort of accommodation. i just urge you to look at the vast every piece of evidence about mitch mcconnell which indicates he doesn't waiver when he's come to a decision and he's going to look straight ahead and do whatever he needs to do. he's not going to feel public opinion in any way because he believes and has been immune to that when it comes to supreme court judges and other things of that nature. >> merit garland comes to mind. thank you very much. and deborah, we appreciate it. joining me now is michigan democratic congressman, dan kilde, the chief whip of the house democratic caucus. thank you so much for joining us. we're talking about the investigation that the house did and whether or not some people are saying that you should, republicans mostly, but democrats should have gone in and gone to the courts and made sure they had all the witnesses they wanted and the testimony from those witnesses before sending it to the senate because the senate is just a jury and they need to hear the house's

investigation. push back on that argument if you can or tell me why it might be right. >> well, honestly, we would have preferred to have all the witnesses that are relevant to this question come before us but we're not going to fall into a trap where the white house gets to use stalling tactics and essentially prevent us from taking any at all. they can continue to dangle witnesses out there. the president sort of has tried to have it both ways. nothing new to him. where he says he would love to have these witnesses testify but then has them under direct and specific orders to not cooperate in any fashion at all. and forces the courts every level of the courts to adjudicate that question before they're free to go. so look, this case is pretty clear. the evidence that we've receive ed in open testimony is very clear. even by the president's own admission. i think we have what we need in order to proceed. would i like to have more? sure. but this president is not going

to cooperate with that. >> why is nobody asking for rudy giuliani right now? why was he not, i'm not asking you to speak for senator schumer, but it seems odd that he's not in any of the requests considering he was the one doing the president's business and he's told multiple reporters now that he wants the former ambassador to u ukraine out of the way because she wouldn't pursue the politically motivated investigations that the president wanted. >> i think a decent argument. i would have been preferred for him to be called. however, what rudy giuliani seems to do is give all of the testimony he can in public. he's essentially acknowledged that he's been an agent for the president. been acting on the president's behalf to try to dig up dirt so he would provide interesting color and obviously interesting facts. but that case essentially has been made. i think we're it is a potential issue is for rudy himself.

he may have some kulpaablety and we'll see how that plays out. it's a fair question. i think at some point in time, the american people and this congress has to move forward. we have the information. more than we need in order to pursue these two articles of impeachment and we'll do that this week. >> how are democrats going b about choosing the house managers? there was some talk yesterday that justin might be considered to be a house manager to try this case in the senate. is that a path that is likely to be taken or are you going to rely on people who have been more involved like adam schiff or jerry nadler? >> yeah, i don't think that's being taken as seriously as some might imply that it is. in order to to be considered an impeachment manager, you have to be part of the majority that brought forth these impeachment articles. he may vote for them, but he's certainly not a part of majority. he's an independent. >> what kind of manager do you want to see? does it need to be somebody, do

you want to put forward somebody that's i don't know, maybe one of the front line democrats, one of the national security democrats? somebody in a more moderate r district? is this a strategy for who you choose to try to case? >> i think the idea is to have managers that can speak with clarity and lay the facts out in a way that people with clearly understand them. after all, the senate clearly is the jury in this case. with the american people are going to be watching. so what i believe is someone with a very strong command of the facts who has sat through so much of this testimony that they're able to deal with all of the subtleties, but doesn't miss the fact that this is a clear narrative that speak to a president who's been willing to operate outside the law and can make that case with clarity. so somebody with experience making those sort of arguments to a jury goes to the front of the lip.

>> seems like it's always busy on capitol hill. sounds especially busy today. thank you very much. still ahead, a group of conservatives has a plan to fight donald trump's re-election. one of them is going to join me. but next, rudy giuliani yet again says the quiet part out loud. we were just talking about thisment let's get into it. he said it really, really loud.

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come, we're about to begin. in the past 24 hours, the

president's personal attorney has given a slate of interviews detailing the calculated campaign he launched to smear yovanovitch. he told "the new yorker", i believe i needed yovani out of the the way. she was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody. he again admitted it later on live television. but he revised the why portion of that just a bit. >> it's a headpiece. also has you on the record admitting that you forced out marie yovanovitch. >> of course i did. >> you said you needed her out of the way. are you a personal attorney for the president, so why do you need her out of the way? >> i didn't need her out of the way. i forceded her out because she's corrupt. there's no question she was acting corruptly in that position. and had to be removed. she should have been fired if the state department weren't part of the deep state. >> oh, boy. joining me now is former deputy

secretary of state and cu curtbrdell. rudy giuliani is saying yes, i did force her out. seems like laura ingram there was trying to offer him an out saying no, he didn't really do that, but took it and calls her corrupt. here's the thing, he's not offering any evidence whatsoever of her corruption. he's tweeting about it. he's texting with kristen welker, one of my colleagues here at nbc news saying more to come. is this a scenario where kurt, it's swrus say whatever you want to say and that's all you need to do. just make the allegation. tweet it out. say it on fox news, talk to any reporter who will text you and that's enough. >> i guess when you know that you're not going to have to answer for this under oath in any real legal setting where you can be held accountable and cross examined, you can say and do whatever you want. particularly i guess when you're the president's personal lawyer. not a member of the federal government. not held to any actual ethical

standard. when you can entirely bypass the deep state state department run by trump appointee mike pompeo. i mean the level of insanity that's going on here is dangerous and disturbing. >> so are you saying he should be compelled to testify in order to force him to say these things under oath because right now, he just has total immunity to do whatever he wants. >> he needs to be call bid congress to testify under oath. this is a guy at the center of everything that's happened i involving the ukraine controversy, the call with zelensky and all the activities we have seen surrounding trump's phone call so to not have the firsthand fact based witness at the heart of all this talk about this stuff under oath where he can be held accountable and cross examined and forced to produce evidence to support these conspiracy theorys, to not have that person actually there makes the entire proceeding a sham and let's just be honest

about something. if rudy giuliani could exonerate president trump of all wrong doing under oath, don't you think trump would allow him to go do that? >> good point. so rudy giuliani what he was angry at yovanovitch over was that she blocked ukrainian prosecutors from coming to the united states and presenting their case of corruption on biden. that she wouldn't grant them visas. "the new yorker" did some digging into that and it sounds like it wasn't just her that said no to that. it was a number of state department officials and they write giuliani invited the schoecken to talk to hem, but officials who consulted yovanovitch blocked his visa. they notified kent, who concurred with the decision. so it sounds like she wasn't really the brick wall for rudy giuliani. it was the state department that was the brick wall. >> well, i think we have to

remember though the things that rudy giuliani is peddling here are lies. i mean curt was just talking b about it, right? we've seen these theorys debunked again and again and again. we've seen ambassador yovanovitch, george kent, numerous other officials talk about the work the u.s. embassy in ukraine led by ambassador yovanovitch was doing to root out the corruption that was in you crane as part of u.s. policy and we have seen also over the recent month, how deeply embedded rudy giuliani was with many of those very corrupt officials, so i think we have to take a step back. not treat what rudy giuliani is peddling here. as fact and look at it in the way that i think it needs to be seen, which is that the personal lawyer of the president of the united states who helped extort this foreign country to try to get the president his personal political help for his campaign in which he's being impeached over right now, that whole scheme is ongoing.

giuliani was in ukraine again in the last couple of weeks and he continues to go around pedding these lies and sounds like this is going to be part of the president's strategy during the upcoming impeachment trial. >> the president seems to be distances himself from rudy giuliani a little bit. not like he's really putting his arms out and saying don't come near me. he called rudy giuliani a great crime fighter the other day, but kind of indicated he doesn't really know what he's doing. not sure how many people really believe that. one of the things that has bewildered me is if you want to say that donald trump should not be impeached because you don't think the conduct is impeachable, i think that's a perfectly fair and reasonable argument to make. it is admitting or ak cementing the facts of the matter, but saying i don't believe these facts over come this threshold. fine. what it'm not seeing, i'm not seeing that argument being made by republicans. what i'm seeing is none of this ever happened.

how to you contend with none of this ever happened and rudy giuliani still saying yeah, this all happened? >> again, that's the issue here. we've heard republicans not really defend the president's behavior per se. they're not adopting his rhetoric that everything is perfect and that no wrong doing happen. they just spent the time trying to ait can the prospect because on the truth, they don't have a leg to stand op. if republicans really thought nothing bad happened here, they would let rudy testify and ambassador bolton to come before congress to testify and exonerate the president. but they're not calling for that. for all their rhetoric about not having fact based firsthand witnesses wanting for some reason, hunter biden, who would not be a fact base or firsthand witness to this, for all their talk about that, they still don't want the central characters involved to come under oath, under penalty of

purgery and answer questions from members of congress. if anything, these proceedings will be more about who he didn't hear from than who we have. >> if you were yovanovitch, would you sue rudy giuliani for slander? >> ambassador yovanovitch has shown herself to be a stand up person and career public servant and i think she's trying to do what's in the best interest of the country right now. >> thank you very much. and breaking news on the case of rudy giuliani's associate lev parnas. he was just in court fighting to be allowed to remain out on bail pending trial. joining me now from the courthouse here in new york city, tom winter. tom, what happened? >> hey, katy. so the top line is that parnas can remain out on bail while he awaits his trial in this case and likely more charges that will be filed against him. we expect those because prosecutors telegraphed that several weeks ago and said the

same today. his motion though for less restrictive bail and bond e essentially you could get out of his house more. he's got an ankle brace let at this point. that was rejected by the judge but the key bit of information that we were able to get here, katy, a couple of ambulances going by, is that dimitri, a ukrainian oligarch, close associate of manafort, quote upper echelon of organized crime, waiting extradition in vienna, austria. that's where parnas and fruman were going when they were arrested. his swiss attorney is behind the million dollars that parnas got back in october. that's a bit of a development because it's been portrayed that parnas is just some sort of a translator here. a very well paid one at 200,000 over the course of four months,

but now he's getting a million dollars in his bank account and federal prosecutors say even though it seems a loan for a house for parnas to purchase, they raise the money laundering suggestion here that it could be something that was really just a payment to him. so more mystery, more intrigue why this ukrainian oligarch who's got a lot of reasons to get out of trouble is paying somebody b so close. >> not a bad gig. thank you very much. more breaking news. president trump has sent a letter to nancy pelosi wrat iit in part quote by proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office. you are breaking your allegiance to the constitution and you are declaring open war on american democracy. joining me now from the white house, nbc news correspondent, hans nicholls. this is a multipaged letter. >> it's a letter of protest from the president. tryinging to set the historical record so something like this doesn't happen in the future.

i read through this quickly and it's close to five and a half, six pages and there doesn't seem to be a final point to it other than the president come plang about how he feels he's been treated unfairly. talks about how his constitutional rights have been trampled upon. how he wasn't allowed to confront his accusers. how his attorneys weren't allowed to be b present. but there's nothing that i'm reading that's necessarily new. it's quite lengthy. five and a half pages of something that's a mixture of the president's tweets. i say that because there's a lot of exclamation points in there and something likely vetted by his counsel's office. just a flavor of this. he says he's been afforded less due processes than those during the salem witch trials. that was just one of the many lines that struck out at me but i don't see anything that really changes what we expect the to happen here in the next 24, 48 hours. >> a lot of hyperbole. >> there's no because you've

done this, i will do that. it's more dwrou did all these bad things to me and i want to put this on into one form. >> this is an argument that is was not there in the beginning. this is an argument that came out just a couple of weeks ago or a few weeks ago. this idea that because he said us in the call he meant us the united states not me. but somebody has seized on this. he's write iing in the letter again. again, he wasn't just talking about corruption. two things that personally would benefit him in 2020 and i think one of the democratic lawmakers made this point in one of the hearings or the hearing earlier today. he didn't bring these things up in 2017 or 2018. he brought this up in 2019 after right after joe biden announced

he was running. >> so real quickly on the president using the us and sort of the royal we. what white house officials will tell you u is that the president focusing on that is because house democrats have sometimes misquote d him saying i want yo to do me a favor. so the president's correcting them and saying us, but you're right to say that seizing upon that and really focusing upon that is something that came out in the ls two, three weeks. it wasn't there initially when they released the transcript. that said, if the white house is going to have this fight and the fate of the presidency depends on the call log, the transcript, the technical term is a memo. they're comfortable with that argument and they've always wanted to be about the four corners of what's in that document. again, reading through here, this seems like a more formalized version of the virus rvarious tweets. 123 tweets a couple of days ago or what he does on the weekends or the oval office x he's about to meet with the foreign leader

here and we'll see to what extent he gives an actual voice to what he's articulated here on paper, but i don't see anything new here, but it's a new form if that makes some sense. >> we are a minute away from the president and i think you're right. i think we'll hear him say the same thing because his message has been consistent that this is a witch hunt. he also writes and i want to read another portion. you are the ones interfering in america's election, subverting america's democracy, obstructing justice. bringing pain and suffering to our republic for your own selfish and partisan gain. impeachment is a remedy prescribed in the u.s. constitution. >> yeah. >> asking a foreign power to help you with an investigation that would help you politically, not something that in the constitution as something you're allowed to do. >> well, i'm in the going to play constitutional law here, but i think you're correct. you're on firm grounds here. just reading, i just glanced down and he accuses schiff of

highing. >> hans, hold on. here's the president. >> not watching. i've not seen it. look, it's a hoax. the whole impeachment thing is a hoax. we look forward to getting on to the senate. we're not entitled to lawyers. we're not entitled to witnesses. to anything in the house. a total sham. when you have a guy like shifty schiff go out and make up a statement that i made, he said this is what he said. but i never said it. he totally made it up. in guatemala, they handle things much tougher than that and because of immunity, his house immunity, he can't be prosecuted. he took a statement and totally made it up. it was a lie. a fraud. and you can't do those things. this has been a, a total sham from the beginning. everybody knows. i've never seen the republican party so united.

we've got 100% of the vote. b i believe the senate is equally as well united. i watched mitch mcconnell this morning. i watched numerous people last night. senators and i think we're equally united. they know it's a hoax. a witch hunt and it's just a continuation that's been going on now for almost three years and it probably started before i even won the election based on what we're finding out with the insurance policy quotes and other things. it's a disgrace. >> are you going to let senator mcconnell decide on witnesses? >> yes and when we're taking the vote for the u.s. mca. a very, very important deal with mexico canada, ourselves. we're going to have to decide whether or not that comes first or second. to me, i'd let the senate decide on that. >> any responsibility for the fact that you're about to be impeached? >> no, i don't take any, zero, to put it mild ly. they took a perfect phone call that i had with the president of

ukraine and absolutely perfect call. you know it. they all know it. nothing was said wrong in that call. to impeach the president of the united states for that is a disgrace and a mark on our country. other presidents in the future, unless they do something about this, other presidents are going to have to live with this and ef time they do something that's a little bit unpopular or strong, even if they're 100% right because i've done a great job, when you look at the kind of jobs we've created, when you look at the economy we've created, when you look at rebuilding the military, taking care of the vets, if you just take a look at what we've done with choice. veterans choice. with accountability and the vets, with what we've done to protect our second amendment and so many other thing, nobody's done as much as i've done in first three years. thank you all very much.

[loafer lapping speakers] >> again, a lot of what we heard in that letter, hans is still with me and joining me again is deborah, law professor. we were reading over this letter while the president was speaking and you said no lawyer would ever sign this. >> it's fascinating to me in a will the of ways. one thing is right previous letters we've seen defending the president coming from the white house have come from white house counsel's office. it's taken a lot of criticism for drafting letters that don't have legal arguments in them. don't have factual u statements in them. my guess is if theed a lawyer to sign this, a lawyer wouldn't. it lacks sufficient basis in fact. it has no basis in law and allegations to the speaker of the house of representatives like you're violating your oaths of office in pursuing articles

of impeachment are not only false, but insind yar, especially in the current climate so it's a worrisome i think letter from the white house. it's one that i can't imagine see iing from any other white house. >> is this, what does this do? >> legally, it has no effect at all. >> just a political tool for the president to, to blast out to his supporters or to the senate or people that he thinks can be convinced? >> i think that's right. the last thing i want to do is put myself in the head of the president, but it does make clear he feels loick he's being insufficiently defended by his current defenders in the senate, the in the house. if he felt like the dephelfense him had been made by the house of representatives, republicans in the senate, he would feel less need. >> i wonder how much of this is going to come out when his white

house lawyer, how much of this will come out in his formal defense or how much of a formal defense he'll even have. who knows what it's going to look like in the senate. you have news on mitch mcconnell? >> yeah, i think what the president just told us is something in advance f the story slightly. president trump said it's up to mitch mcconnell on whether or not he decides to call witnesses. the president seems to be broadly deferential to mcconnell on how long or short the senate version will be. i heard a deferential president there. >> what i've been reading in various news articles is that behind the scene, i think mike bender might have been the last person to write this for the "wall street journal," that the president really wants a longer trial. what the president wants is a trial that's going to exonerate him. a trial that will argue his case and it seems like mcconnell

wants something neat and quick, get it out of the way, out of people's minds before 2020. >> again, you're right to point out that the president sometimes says things in public and works crosswise in private, but what he said there officially is that he's going to defer to the mcconnell only the length and it's up to mitch. just real quickly so it doesn't get buried in this five, six page letter. but the campaign just put out some privat polling which gives sense of how the white house feels now. and they have polled in those 30 trump districts concurrently occupied by house democrats and they say they average, again, their internal polling, we don't have their methodology, but they show an 11 h point advantage on impeachment. they are blasting this out. it tells you the mind set of the white house and they feel that impeachment is a political winner for them. now whether or not it will be, none of us are in a position to

adjudicate that. >> i think some of the polling has been better news for trump when it comes to impeachment. his quinnipiac favorablety number is the highest it's ever been. 43% i believe i read this morning, which again would be good news for the president. hans, deborah, guy, thank you very much. up next, the republicans who are fighting donald trump's re-election, one joins me right after the break. r the break. (man and woman) [burst of talking to animals] ♪ (vo) it feels good to give back. (attendant) thank you so much. (woman) oh, you are so welcome. (vo) you can choose the aspca to get two hundred and fifty dollars from subaru when you get a new subaru, like the all new outback. (vo 2) get 0.9% on a new outback during the subaru share the love event. seaonly abreva cany to help sget rid of it in... ...as little as 2 1/2 days when used at the first sign. abreva starts to work immediately to block the virus and protect healthy cells.

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announced the launch of o a committee aimed at stopping the re-election of president trump. it's called the lincoln project. it's led by george conway, husband of kellyanne conway. in a "new york times" op-ed, he writes over these next 11 mon s months, our efforts will be dedicated to defeating president trump and trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will be holding the line. joining me now, chairman, jennifer horn. always good to see you. do you think u that there is a lane for this sort of effort? will you have people to convince who are not already convinced? >> there's absolutely a lane for this sort of effort. thank you for having me and i apologize i'm fighting a little bit of a cold today. there are millions of republicans, millions of american voters across this country. who believe as we do that donald trump presents a threat to our republic and that his enablers

in congress are going down the path to a constitutional crisis. it is time for us all to put our political differences aside and come together as pat rottic americans and make sure donald trump dupt get four more years in the white house. >> your hair is hitting the mike and i want you to brush it back so we don't hear that noise again. i want to let people hear what you have to say. what exactly, what is your erat going to hook like? will you be out with ads in key state sns targeting social media? what is it going look like? >> sure, absolutely. we're going to use all the resources that we have. we're going to be putting up ads, broadcast, dingital ads. we're going to target those states where we have the greatest impact. ohio, michigan and pennsylvania. senate races b possible ly in maine, arizona, colorado. we're going to go into those parts of the country where there

are american voters who are as disgusted by this president as we are and want to see not just the president to be replaced, but his enablers in congress as well. let's not forget the senate majority leader just came out a couple of days ago to tell us that he and republicans in the senate are going to advocate their oath of office by approaching this impeachment trial in full coordination with the white house. they have abandoned the idea of themselves as a separate branch of government. they are not serving the american people so we're going to be targeting all of them. >> we're going to dip into chuck schumer. hold on one second. let's quo to go to chuck. >> more evidence. senator durbin. >> thanks, chuck. this would be the third time in theory of thistory o the united states where there's an

impeachment trial in united states senate. richard nixon with the prospect looming of an impeachment trial resigned. this will be the third time in our history that this has happened. a number of colleagues have asked us what's it like. it's a much different environment and different atmosphere than you witness on the floor of the senate every day. there's a realization when the chief justice of the supreme court appears in his robes to preside over the senate chamber and the house managers open their tables for business on the floor of the senate chamber that were in a different circumstance. a circumstance which requires us to rise to the occasion. this is about more than a trial of donald trump. a trial of the united states senate. and i would say to mitch mcconnell -- >> we just used chuck schumer say if he believes liwitnesses aren't called, he will be

engaged in a cover up. generjennifer, you're still wit. you're talking about the president's enablers and you mentioned mcconnell. will you be campaigning to get mcconnell out of the senate? mc? >> we're certainly going to be going strongly after those members, those republican members in the senate who are choosing willfully to abandon their constitutional responsibilities right now. that could include mitch mcconnell, it could include susan collins, it could include cory gardner and martha mcsally. these are the people that we expect as republicans to stand up and do what is right. katy, these people have abandoned their right to call themselves the party of lincoln, and it was lincoln who said that the way to test a man's character is to give him power. these members, these republican members of the senate have failed abraham lincoln's test of character. >> are you going to be endorsing democrats in the races against

those republican senators or republican congress people or a democrat in the race against the president? >> we -- >> isn't that the best way to defeat them? >> we will be strongly encouraging people to vote for whoever the nominee is on the other side of the ballot from donald trump. but i take this opportunity to reminding our friends across the aisle that if they want to defeat donald trump, they have to bring a nominee toward that disaffected republicans, that light-leaning independents, that people who left the republican party can be motivated and inspired to come out and support and to vote on election day. there is no gimme for the democrats on this side. if they allow donald trump to turn this into a debate about democracy versus socialism, they're going to be in a terrible place. they need to bring us a nominee that disaffected republicans can feel good about supporting. >> so i guess you're not going to be endorsing bernie sanders? >> i don't see that happening.

i don't see that happening. >> if bernie sanders is the only one against donald trump, would you say bernie sanders is a better choice even if you don't believe in democratic socialism which is what he's advocating for? >> it's way too early to have that conversation. what we're doing right now is trying to make sure that we educate all of the voters out there about the records of their senators, bring to their attention the truth about this president. you know, this is much bigger than impeachment. everybody is very focused on impeachment but this is about three years of weakness and cowardice and failure from this president. he has betrayed his oath of office, he has betrayed his country when he goes to a foreign power and asks them to dig up dirt on a political opponent, when he calls on china and russia and others to do that, his collapse in syria, his interactions with turkey, north korea when he thinks that he

needs to build a friendship with north korea instead of with members of nato. this president has betrayed the country. we cannot stand as americans and know that there continue to be immigrant children kept in cages at our borders and think that we are going to vote to re-elect him, to send him back to the corner office. there are times throughout history where we've had to put our political differences aside and rise up together and do the right thing. this is one of those times. >> jennifer horn, jennifer, feel better. thank you for coming on. >> thank you. thank you for having me. and a bill that would grant paid parental leave to all federal employees is now headed to the president's desk. let's take a deep breath, everyone. the national defense authorization act, a bill that authorizes funding for the u.s. military, passed the senate this afternoon by a vote of 86-8. it passed the house last week and included in the ndaa is a provision that would provide 12

weeks of paid parental leave for all federal workers. millions of people who did not have it before. the president has said he will sign the bill. no word yet on when exactly that would happen. remember, his daughter is a big supporter of this as well, ivanka trump. again, this is a big deal. supporters hope that businesses across the country will follow the federal government's lead and provide paid parental leave for all americans. after all, the federal government is the largest employer in the united states. joining me now chrissie houlihan, one of the lawmakers credited with making this happen. i'm going to put impeachment to the side for a moment and talk about how you were able to get this into the ndaa and what it's going to mean. >> thank you so much for having me and for allowing us the conversation of good news coming from washington. we have an amazing course of events whereby both parties

bipartisanly have come together with the support of our president to support 2.1 million people having paid parental leave for the first time ever. this all came together because i think we appropriately all identify the importance of families and the importance of making sure that people have the opportunity to enjoy the birth of a newborn or addition to a family because it strengthens the family, it strengthens the organization and it strengthens the nation as a result. so i do hope that this is a lead-in for other organizations, for-profit organizations in our country to follow suit. >> does this make the foreign government a more competitive employer? do you think you'll be able to recruit better talent for the federal government by offering something like this? >> absolutely. i personally was a veteran, am a veteran, i served in the air force in the '80s and '90s and separated partially because of this exact issue. i had six weeks of leave but i have to wait six months to access the base child care, which was my only real

affordable option so i decided to separate from the military largely because of this particular issue. hopefully this will better align with people's lives and lifestyles and encourage people to get in the federal government and stay in the federal government. >> what does this mean for the legislation that's been introduced in both the house and senate, different legislation with different ideas. is this going to pave the way for a mandatory paid parental leave for all americans provided for at least in part by the federal government that doesn't just include, hey, you had a child or you adopted a kid or you have a sick parent or a sick family member that you need to take care of, something that would give paid for all workers regardless of what they need it for? >> so this is what we hope is the beginning of that process. chairwoman maloney and chairwoman smith have been working tirelessly on this issue and i have joined them recently on this. we are heading towards paid

family leave, whether at the federal level or broader. that's definitely the goal that we have in mind because it strengthens the community and the nation if we're able to accomplish this. >> well said. congresswoman, thank you for coming on and thank you for talking to us about what is a little bit of good news today in this sea of impeachment. we do appreciate it. we'll be right back. appreciate . we'll be right back. still fresh... ♪

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itreat them all as if, they are hot and energized. stay away from any downed wire, call 911 and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. ali velshi is here. i just want to underscore something and i know it kind of gets lost because we've been talking about it so much and we're part of 24-hour cable news, but tomorrow the president of the united states is going to be impeached by the house of representatives. that is a really big deal. it is an historic moment. it's one that we will be teaching in the history books going forward. kids will learn about it as this crazy moment in american politics. it just makes you wonder every day how everybody is going to be seen 10, 20, 30, 40, 100 years from now. >> regardless of what side of the issue you're on now or were

on with bill clinton or richard nixon, it is an constitutional process. >> history is not going to look kindly on this. >> we're having conversations about the legitimacy of the process of impeachment. it was not spelled out all that clearly by the founding fathers, but it was a process that was established for congress to go through. >> it is a constitutional process. >> it is a constitutional process. my friend, thank you. have yourself a great day. >> you too, thank you. good afternoon. it is thursday, december 17th. we present you with not just high crimes and misdemeanors, but a constitutional kri aal cr progress. these are words uttered by jamie raskin. he is sitting in for jerry nadler in the rules process that is under way right now. the rules committee is working right now to establish ground rules for tomorrow's historic debate on whether to impeach president trump for abuse of power and obstruction of congress.